This collaborative article explores child-centredness as a theoretical and methodological concept by asking what it means to centre children in research. The collaborative format offers a heterogeneity of voices on the concept as the contributing authors write, critically and creatively, from a range of different interdisciplinary research perspectives. Writing from the departure point of the key role of child-centred approaches within the field, including recent discussions concerning the need to decentre children/childhood, the goal is to spur and contribute to discussions on the possibilities and challenges of the concept, as well as new ways of approaching it.

This piece is a collective exploration by seven doctoral researchers in Child Studies, who discuss notions of listening to children and young people in a Swedish context. We approach different aspects of listening in research and in practices such as education, psychiatry, and social work. The discussions in this collective writing are an invitation for continuous reflections about the contexts where listening to children is done, its challenges and possibilities.

Most research on emotions, including that which takes a social perspective, is directed at negative emotions and their manifestation in social situations that involve conflicts, disputes, and arguments. This thesis instead aims to address children’s heightened positive emotions and their interactional functions within the peer group and in learning encounters with teachers in preschool. Theoretically and methodologically, the thesis adopts a multimodal interaction analysis perspective. The data comprises 40 hours of video-ethnographic recordings of everyday activities conducted in a regular preschool in Sweden. The participants include 6 teachers and 50 children (ages 1-5, girls and boys). The following research questions underpin the thesis: How do young children invite co-participation and reciprocate laughter in multiparty interactions with peers and teachers? How do young children invoke excitement displays to initiate joint attention in multiparty peer settings in preschool? How do teachers choreograph suspense practices as a means to organize participation in educational activities? The thesis highlights the communicative and social affordances and challenges that young children encounter when interacting in large groups in preschool settings. The thesis contributes with knowledge in a largely unexplored area, i.e., heightened emotional displays in children’s peer groups, and adult-child interactions.

Merparten av forskning om känslor, inklusive den som tar ett socialt perspektiv, är inriktad på negativa känslor och deras manifestation i sociala situationer som involverar konflikter, dispyter och argument. Denna avhandling syftar snarare till att rikta sig mot barns förhöjda positiva känsloyttringar och deras sociala interaktionella funktioner såväl i kamratgruppen som i deras dagliga interaktioner i lärsituationer med pedagoger i förskolan. Teoretiskt och metodologiskt intar avhandlingen ett multimodalt interaktionsanalysiskt perspektiv. Data består av 40 timmar videoetnografiska inspelningar av vardagliga aktiviteter som äger rum på en ordinär förskola i Sverige. Deltagarna inkluderar 6 pedagoger och 50 barn (flickor och pojkar ett till fem år). De forskningsfrågor som legat till grund för avhandlingen är följande: Hur bjuder små barn in till meddeltagande och till återgäldande skratt i flerpartssamspel med kamrater och lärare? Hur tar barn känsloyttringar till hjälp för att få till stånd en gemensam uppmärksamhet mellan flera deltagare i förskolans kamratgrupp? Hur koreograferar lärare spänningsmoment som ett sätt att organisera deltagande i utbildningsaktiviteter? Avhandlingen belyser de kommunikativa och sociala möjligheter och utmaningar som små barn möter när de interagerar i stora grupper i förskolemiljöer. Avhandlingen bidrar med kunskap till ett i stort sett outforskat område, det vill säga förhöjda positiva känsloyttringar inom barns kamratgrupp och i vuxenbarn interaktioner.

Laughter is a mundane phenomenon that is ubiquitous in social life. This chapter examines young children’s laughter, specifically focusing on the calibration of shared laughter as it typically occurs in multiparty interactions. It discusses?children’s interactional competences in calibrating emotional stances and affiliation. The analysis takes into account the multimodal features that characterise situations of reciprocal laughter, contributing to the understanding of laughter as a fully embodied social phenomenon. It shows that laughter was interactionally accomplished in ways that established affiliation between a group or a dyad of children. The establishment of mutual gaze was important in initiating, reciprocating and sustaining shared emotional stance through the performance?of laughter. The embodied calibration of the children’s shared stance shows that laughter is used in the establishment of affiliation and rapport. Young children’s situated humor and ‘funniness’ is thus clearly a joint, shared interactional and social – dyadic or multiparty – accomplishment.